


Silent Night

by AntaresofJuly



Series: Snowy Days [4]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Barry’s a hero, Character Growth, Character Study, Christmas Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Len’s having a midlife crisis, M/M, Not legend of tomorrow compliant, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28479753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntaresofJuly/pseuds/AntaresofJuly
Summary: As the night goes on, Cold gets progressively more drunk. And drunk Cold is kind of soft and sad.Or, would Len still become a hero if LoT never happened?
Relationships: Barry Allen & Leonard Snart, Barry Allen/Leonard Snart
Series: Snowy Days [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/811305
Comments: 8
Kudos: 55





	Silent Night

It was the Christmas Eve, Barry was in the middle of his family dinner with everybody when the call came.

They’d had a white Christmas this year. The snow was falling outside. Joe’s house as always was decorated to the twelve with gifts hidden beneath the plastics tree that Iris had insisted on buying a few years ago and little baubles everywhere. Christmas lights were shining cheerfully around, putting everyone in holiday spirits.

He picked up the phone. “Hello! Merry Christmas!”

There was no answer.

He frowned and looked at the screen. It showed an unknown number.

“Hello?” He tried again as he walked away from the table.

Again, quietness. After a few seconds, just as he was about to hang up, a voice came up. 

“ _Barry_ .” 

Barry blinked. He could recognize that voice anywhere. “Cold? Is that you?” No answers. “Are you alright?”

A longer silence this time, then the line disconnected.

Frowning deeper, a slight twist of trepidation in his stomach, he immediately dialed Cisco.

“Cisco. Can you track down the cold gun for me right now?”

“Heeey Barry, merry Christmas to you too! what happened? And yes, I’m on it.”

Barry took in a deep breath, as he listened to the keyboard clicking. “I don’t know, that’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“Alright,” Cisco said carefully, “one location coming up right away!”

Eddie caught up with him at the door just as he was about to put on his running shoes. 

“What’s the matter, Barr?”

“Something just came up. I need to go. Tell Joe and Iris not to wait up for me? I don’t know how long this will take.”

“Ok.” Eddie looked at him with genuine concern, “Just be careful out there.”

Barry smiled at him. “I will.”

It took him less then a second to get to the location. He bursted through the door without a second thought, immediately calling out, “Cold, are you there?”

Memory of Lewis Snart still too fresh in his head.

He heard a thudding noise, like some metal thing hitting a tabletop. And then came a slightly slurred response, “Do come in, Scarlet, why don’t you?”

He found Snart on a sofa, in front of a messy coffee table. He didn’t appear to be harmed in any way. Although, the thief did look kind of bemused and he hadn’t moved from his slouching spot since Barry came in, which was highly unlike his usual alert self. 

“Our resident hero, breaking and entering, again.”Snart slur-drawled in lieu of a greeting, then proceed to give him a mock salute.

He did a double take.

“Oh my god!” Barry exclaimed, taking in the tableful of the empty beer cans, “are you drunk?! Did you... did you just drunk dialed me, at JOE’s place?!!”

Cold didn’t look impressed by his outburst. “Not drunk. Just slightly tipsy. And I don’t remember inviting you over.” He sat up a little bit straighter, possibly as an effort to appear sober, and blinked a few times at him, pupils clearly dilated.

Barry rolled his eyes.

He looked around. The place had a kind of comfortable atmosphere, not too luscious and not too crampy. It didn’t seem like a disposable safe house or a stolen place. He quickly checked through all the rooms. 

He went back into the living room.

“Cold, where’s Lisa?” He asked.

“Out on ‘shopping’ spree,” Snart took another gulp from his beer, leaning back into the sofa like he was bored, “in San Diego. Might be staying there for a while.”

Who’d know. Drunk Snart was unexpectedly forthcoming.

“I thought you guys spend Christmas together.” He moved around the table to sit on the other side of the sofa not too far from the other man, because, well, he was already here so why the heck not. Cold didn’t seem to object.

“Usually, but now that Lewis is dead, she wanted to celebrate.” Snart snorted fondly but somewhat accusingly, “Bolted out of town on the day before Christmas.”

Right, Lewis. Which could sort of explain why Snart was drunk in front of him right now. They probably both felt freer and safer and finally able to relax now that the bastard couldn’t hurt them anymore.

Barry could bet all his running shoes that Cold didn’t even tell his sister he’d rather she stayed with him through the holidays. It doesn’t seem to be how they work.

These two were so different from him and Iris, but still similar in more significant ways. He’d be a bit sad too if Iris ditched him just to go shopping on Christmas.

Wait, weren’t all the stores closed? Never mind... Barry signed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

It didn’t explain why Cold looked so downtrodden though, all slouched and inactive, like he’d just crashed down from some high.

Just as he was about to interrogate Cold if he had ingest any drug because he’d better not, without looking at him Cold calmly explained, “I’m not used to getting drunk. Couldn’t stand the thought of possibly turning into  _him_. But there’s no possible victims here today. Thought I’d give it a try.” the corner of his mouth tugged a bit self-deprecatingly, “Didn’t turn out so great.”

Was that an apology? Barry realized belatedly, just so relieved that it was only booze, and a bit off-centered by the tight little smile that he had just first seen on the other man’s face, an apology for disrupting his Christmas Eve probably, without actually apologizing.

“No shit,” Barry deadpanned, squinting at him. “You look like you could use some serious fixing up...“

Which was not technically true, Cold looked as  fine as ever, bathed in warm flattering light in his tight black turtleneck and jeans.

It was his eyes and posture that gave him away. He was slouched, for one. His eyes a darker shade of blue. There were none of that cocksure challenge and sparks of joy Barry associated him with. Instead, they stared mutely ahead.

And Barry was surprised by how much he didn’t like that.

Cold had no witty comeback. He simply kept sipping his beer.

“You know, you can talk to me.” He turned his upper torso to fully face the thief and prompted. “You’ve already called me here. Might as well.”

Cold murmured under his breath “Didn’t invite you.” Then he said out loud “I’ve nothing to talk about.”

“That’s not what you said over the phone.”

“Didn’t say anything over the phone.”

“Exactly.”

Cold signed.

He leaned his head back over the top of the sofa and fixed him with a calculating stare. Whatever he was weighing in his mind though, he seemed to come to an affirmative conclusion.

And then he stared at the ceiling instead of Barry.

“You’ve seen my father.”

Barry nodded, then added an “I did.” Unsure how else to respond.

But Cold didn’t speak right after. After a while, he squeezed his eyes shut and whispered “I guess, I guess in a way I had always been afraid that one day he could pop back up into our lives and... but it ended on that day. The fear. We are finally really free, I should’ve feel elated, but instead...”

He stopped there and didn’t seem to want to continue.

So Barry added, “You felt sad, like there’s an emptiness inside, now that the... the pressure is gone. Like you’ve been fighting against something too hard for too long, now that it’s not here anymore, you are lost.”

Barry smiled at Snart’s surprised look. “Defeating the man who killed my mom was for such a long time the most important purpose of my life. That after Eobard was finally done for, he left a void. I finally had to look more at how I spend my time, Iris was engaged to Eddie, and I... Sorry, this isn’t about me. Please go on.”

“Nah, I’d rather listen to you blabber all day.” Snart gave him an tipsy grin.Barry snorted. Must be more intoxicated than Barry had first thought.

Which made Barry felt sort of bad, like he’d been taking advantage of Snart somehow. But... but this was too precious an opportunity to pass if he really wanted to help the man. So instead, he analyzed the information gathered in his brain.

Cold was basically living in survival mode since he was little, having to constantly look over his shoulders for the next blow. He had built up his confidence in  crime, but it wasn’t enough to fully overcome his fear of his jerk of a father. Then... suddenly the fear was gone, and doing heist after heist couldn’t be truly sustaining, could it? Anyway he felt at lost and empty inside, leading him to sink into despair after getting drunk and lost control of his emotions.

Which sounded about it, but there was still something that didn’t quite make sense.

Barry asked conversationally. “Why did you call me then? Not that I mind, but why not, say, Lisa, or maybe Mick? He’s your friend right?”

“It’s more complicated then that.”

“So why me?” 

“Lisa is having fun.”

“And so you called your frienmy on Christmas Eve?”

“I don’t know,” Cold let out in a huff, his eyes closed, and his voice was croaked a little.

“Alright,” Barry said, inching closer. “It’s alright. I’m happy you called.”

Snow flakes gently twirled down from high sky outside the misted window, shining bright in the dark, and they settled into a comfortable silence.

Barry had stretched on the sofa as well. He picked up the remote and flicked through the channels, until he found a cheesy Christmas movie and left it playing while he went and brought in some chips from a convenient store nearby.

He let Snart steal his chips and they watched some bikini-clayed couple having an exaggerated romantic fight on some sunny beach somewhere.

“Hey, that could be you, Snart!” Barry said around a mouthful of chips. “You could be lying on a beach in some tropic paradise sipping tequila, like right now.”

“Doesn’t quite fit the brand now does it?” Snart snorted at the mental image. “Call me Len.”

“Huh?”

“You are sitting on my sofa watching TV and sprinkling chips. Might as well call me Len.”

Barry pretended he wasn’t secretly flattered by it. “Um, sure. Len.”

They ate chips and watched TV a bit more. The couple had now made up and was kissing on the moonlit beach.

“So why do you keep doing it, Len? It’s not like you don’t have enough money. Many other thieves have actually retired, usually as soon as they managed a fortunate job. You could have done that. you could have a very comfortable life.”

“I could.“ Cold conceded.

“You could. But you didn’t. So why?”

Cold didn’t speak, lips formed into a thin line. He stared at the beer cans, and reached out a hand to fix them into an array.

Then he looks up and flicked him a deliberate gaze. “Then I wouldn’t be meeting you would I, and where’s the fun in that?”

Barry felt his heart skip a beat. The flirt was meant as a diversion, he knew, but still, it carried something more confessional to it than their usual back and forth. A stall was still a stall though, and he was angling to get to the answers tonight.

“Are you saying you’ve been returning to central just to wait for me to show up all this time?” He teased back with a smirk.

Cold seemed to be caught off guard by where his own diversion had led. He looked actually flustered for a moment, blinking several times. Poor bastard probably had a hard time with booze in his brain. A tint of color slowly crept up the already drunk-pinked face. There was a moment he looked like he almost was about to say something, a  retort maybe? Or... but then he looked away again.

“Come on, Len.” Barry prompted, “There’s got to be some reason you’ve not done that. It’s just not enough for you, is it? Stealing and making a fortune. You wanted something more.”

Snart looked pained for a second. Then He almost bit out. “Don’t presume what I want or don’t want,  _Barry_.” A cold hardness to his voice, almost threatening, “after all, I’ve got you to keep me thrilled.”

They fell silent after that, and Snart looked away, chest heaving a little. The tv was still playing in the background, but nobody was paying attention to it anymore.

Back in the days when they first met, Snart didn’t look that great on his profiled trajectory. He was in the business long enough. He used to be impeccable. Clean jobs, top marks, quick and controlled. Always avoided meaningless casualties. But then, he had just started to become sloppier. Returned to central. Killed a man.

It was almost like his controlled, rational side was slowly losing to the impulsive, self-destructive side, Barry remembered.

And he didn’t look so great right now either, slouching on his sofa, a blank look on his face. Not like the Captain Cold Barry usually met, who had always been full of excitement and actions, by far. 

Captain Cold had been too good at chasing adrenaline rushes. But maybe that was only because he had met the Flash before it became too late.

“Thrilled.” Barry repeated, picking up the conversation despite Snart’s avoidance. “Not satisfied. Otherwise,” he casted a glance around the table of empty cans, “otherwise I wouldn’t be here tonight.”

“Why are you here, Barry?” Cold asked, in retort, but he could not hide the trace of befuddlement in his voice and it made Barry’s heart ache just a little. 

“Because I care.” Barry replied matter-of-factly.

He pushed the cans to the side with one forearm and sat on the coffee table, facing Cold, leaning forward with arms bracing on his knees, kind of caging the man in his shadow.

Snart didn’t move, but he stared up at Barry with wide eyes.

“If chasing thrills aren’t good enough for you, Len, then what is it that you truly want?”

_Why did you move back? What is it that you are seeking? It can’t just be because this is the place you grown up. Enough people tried to move away from their abusive homes to start over. So why did you come back?_

And they stared at each other for some time. Barry wasn’t going to be impatient and give in first. He waited.

It was Snart who break the silence,

“Ain’t this the time you tell me there’s good in me?” Snart finally taunted, but his voice was a bit too shaky from the alcohol. 

“There’s good in you.” Barry replied automatically.

And then it hit him. This, buried under the taunting and derision, this might be exactly the answer.

“There’s good in you, Snart. That’s why all the thrills in the world could not be enough for you, because you want your life to have  _meaning_.”

Snart looked at him like he wanted to deny it, to hold on to the status quo. To say ‘ _I’m a thief, and a liar, and I hurt people, and I betray them.’_

But he didn’t.

He just stared at Barry like he was something new and terrible that hurts but couldn’t look away. And it reminded Barry of when he did say those words. Even then, through the fog of  _defeat and hurt and anger_, Barry had seen the same exact emotions reflected in the thief’s eyes.

He hadn’t understood then, but he thought he was starting to now.   
  


Snart broke the eye contact, he reached over for another beer. Missed his mark by a few millimeters and it almost fell off the table.

Barry slid back onto the sofa to not crowd the other man. He had already gotten his answers.

“You didn’t deny it.” He whispered triumphantly, smiling a little bit. He didn’t know where they’d exactly go from here. He was probably getting ahead of himself, but there were so many possibilities swirling in his head, of all the things Snart could do, of ways he could help, that he was almost giddy.

But this was hardly the time and he shifted his attention back to the present.

Only to find Snart, Len, he reminded himself, still fiddling with the can of beer, turning it over and over in his hand.

“You know when I first looked at you what I thought? I thought that could be me.” He said lightly.

That got back Len’s attention and earned him a disbelieving look. “Don’t flatter yourself,  _Flash_. You’re too much of a do-gooder to be able to pull  _this_ off.” He gestured at his languid form.

Barry smiled at the backhand compliment. “That isn’t how it works and you know it.”

Cold was quiet. His eyes not meeting Barry’s. The can stopped turning in his hand.

He had been fidgeting. 

Cold don’t fidget.  Barry realized, with a start, that he was probably scared. 

He must be. Of all the things they said tonight that seemed to imply change. Not a change of pace. Not a change of method. But starting all over. Losing the confidence he built himself on, the accumulation of his life til this day, just to find a new way.

Like a child being thrown into deep water.

He wanted to say so much more. He wanted to tell him about the time he shut himself in. He wanted to tell him how he once lost the sense of normalcy and how it left him disoriented, for years. He wanted to tell him how he built himself up from the pieces, believing there must be something good in the world for him. Of how he believed the same was coming to him.

But it was already getting near the midnight, and Len was drunk.

“Can I hold you?”

Cold looked at him skeptically, but Barry opened his arms anyway, icy blue gaze gingerly landed on his outstretched hand, and then flicked back to his eyes.

And then he leaned forward, just a little bit.

Barry closed his arms around him and pulled him into an embrace.

He was surprised at how quickly the man loosed up into him. And felt the soft fabric, and felt his breaths against his shoulder.

They stayed like that for perhaps fifteen minutes. Then Barry gently leaned back to look the man in the eyes.

“You know, it’s all come down to the day when you face yourself and find out what you truly want.

“And I think,” he said decisively, “you’ve been coming toward that day for a long while now.”

Len didn’t seem too interested in his inspiring speech though, his eyes were  half-closed, like he was almost falling asleep on the couch.

Barry smiled at this, and whispered, “And you are so strong, Len. You can do it!”

Len chuckled and closed his eyes. “A man in tune with his emotions. A man so scared of his feelings he can’t even figure out what he want. Which one is stronger?”

“Trick question, we both strong.” Barry smiled secretively and jokingly flexed his arm.

Cold laughed, and then stifled a yawn.

Barry stood up, “Alright, you are tired, let’s get you to bed.” He stretched out a hand.

Cold looked at the offered hand. And easily enough, put his own on it.

He pulled the man up and he stumbled on his second step. Barry caught him and suppressed a giggle.

Cold shook his head and slurred “might be drunker than I thought.”

He leaned unabashedly into Barry’s side as they walked. Barry swallowed and tightened his arms around Cold, and guided him towards the bedroom. He felt kind of perilous. “Yeah you might get a headache tomorrow morning.” He teased.

“Is that so?” Cold looked at him sideways. “I’ve drunk a lot’a water.”

Of course he did.

He laid Len down onto his bed. Len kicked off his slippers and already had his eye closed.

Barry pulled the comforter over his shoulders and tucked it under his chin and just as he was about to turn to leave, he found Len watching him again.

“Goodnight, Len.” He said awkwardly, and on an impulse, he bent down and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “And Merry Christmas.”

“You too, Scarlet.” He whispered.

Then he went home.

_fin_


End file.
